


Souvenir

by loudspeakr



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: F/F, Light Angst, M/M, Reminiscing, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 20:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9564611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loudspeakr/pseuds/loudspeakr
Summary: Link isn't about to let his daughter's heart be broken.





	

**Author's Note:**

> All my thanks to [missingparentheses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingparentheses/pseuds/missingparentheses/works) for being my beloved beta and an all-round amazing person for putting up with my crap, hah.

Lily is going on her first date.

There’s no avoiding the fact: she’s in her room, door closed, music turned up loud, no doubt hesitating over two near-identical dresses. Nobody has seen her for two hours. Christy knocked on her door a little while ago and was answered with a shout of _“Not ready yet!”_

Link gets it. His memory isn’t so bad that he doesn’t remember being sixteen and getting ready to meet a girl. But he’s a father now – the father of a teenage daughter – and he has every right to feel the way he does.

“He’s a nice boy,” Christy had said earlier tonight, a gentle hand on Link’s forearm as they sat on the couch together. “You should see how she talks about him. I think someone’s got a little crush.” She laughed then, missing the deepening scowl that was blooming on Link’s face.

“Chris, our daughter, our _only_ daughter, our first-born,” – he ignored the eye-roll his wife sent his way – “is going on a date with a _boy._ That I’ve never met. In a car. That he’ll be _driving_.”

“Well, I’ve met him, and he seems lovely.”

Link scoffed. “Of course you’d say that – you married _me_.”

She laughed again. “I did, and look how that turned out. Seriously though, honey, don’t you remember what it was like being young and reckless?”

And the thing is, Link does.

He does remember what it was like to be a young man on the precipice of adulthood. He remembers taking girls out on dates, tearing down dusty highways in his truck, watching movies in the dark with a bucket of popcorn between them. He remembers getting so nervous he thought he would vomit all over the clothes he’d borrow from his dad. He even remembers the first date he ever went on – if you can even really call it a date – holding hands with Lesli during one of Rhett’s basketball games, her fingers squeezing his as his best friend scored the slam dunk that won the game.

“Don’t you remember your first taste of freedom, going on adventures and thinking they’d last forever?”

He does. He remembers summers of fireflies and sticky car seats. He remembers river water drying on his skin and the smell of sunscreen and burnt rubber on tarmac. He remembers snow angels and campfires in the middle of the forest. He remembers spending whole days down at the lake, sitting next to Rhett at the end of the pier, his friend's fingers tracing a gentle line on his knee as they both looked out at the sparkling water, contemplating their future.

“Don’t you remember how it felt the first time you realised you were so taken by another person that it made your heart hurt?”

This, Link remembers most of all. He was twenty-three.

 

His shoes hurt, he recalls. The soles were hard against the balls of his feet, and it was all he could do to not kick them off and away. _Today is a joyous occasion_ , he reminded himself, _now is not the time for this_. But then it’d occurred to him that he probably shouldn’t have agreed to buy this suit. He would never wear it again after today. It was hard-earned money better spent elsewhere.

He remembers the crowd then standing at the first notes being played on the church organ. He remembers seeing his mother’s eyes watering – it hadn’t even started yet – her handkerchief coming up to dab carefully at an eye.

 _God_ , he swore to himself, knowing the Lord could hear all, _the whiskey was a mistake_. His stomach grumbled its assent, churning uncomfortably.

Then the doors opened, and there she was.

She floated down the aisle like an angel, a real-life angel, eyes trained on her destination ahead. Her eyes shining, hair pinned back in delicate curls, Link had never seen her look so beautiful before in all his time of knowing her.

Graceful steps took her to the altar where she met her groom, her hands automatically reaching for his. They held each other there, heads bowed and hands clasped, while the minister spoke words of commitment and warmth over them, an entire community watching on from the pews.

But no matter how hard he tried to concentrate, Link’s nerves continued to jitter. He had no explanation for his anxiety, for the sweaty hands or the heart palpitations. For some reason, his feet ached to run from here, but he kept them planted firmly, forcing himself to stay, to endure.

Foregoing tradition, they exchanged vows they’d written themselves – words that still affect Link to this day, despite his best friend's newfound embarrassment towards them now – and rings as well, twin bands slipped onto the other’s hand. Link nervously fiddled with his own ring where he stood beside the altar, twisting it around his finger, the metal feeling hot and constricting on his skin.

Then the minister was asking them to _speak now_ , and all at once it hit him. From his place between Rhett’s father and cousin, he watched on as Rhett and Jessie looked out at their crowd, smiling at the silence that followed.

In that brief moment, Link considered speaking now. He considered forever holding his peace. _Forever is a long time_ , he knew, _but forever…_

He had his mouth open, words at the ready, when the moment had already passed him by. The priest pronounced them man and wife, Rhett’s lips met Jessie’s, and Link’s heart seized with a fierce regret that still haunts him to this day.

Now, when he recalls the feeling, it’s a mere shadow of how it had felt back then. He had been thankful for the time he was forced to spend apart from Rhett in the weeks that followed the wedding, so consumed he was by this epiphany of his that came seconds too late. He would lay awake at night, held in the arms of his sleeping wife, letting thoughts of a lost future spent alongside the person he loved most in the world drown him in their depths.

And by the time Rhett finally made a reappearance in his life – a new man, a _husband_ – Link had already grown numb to the feeling that had plagued him so, letting it lay dormant within him until the day it would surely erupt.

 

There’s a knock at the door before Link can tell his daughter that she can’t go. He opens it to a boy that towers over him – though it would take more than mere height to scare him – and he’s about to slam the door in the punk’s face when Lily emerges from her room. She’s radiant, rosy cheeks and hands folded nervously over her purse, but beyond the nerves, she is the happiest Link has ever seen her.

So despite everything, he lets her go.

Yes, Link knows it all too well. He knows what it is to be young and in love.

He would never want to take that away from anyone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little nugget of angst to ease me back into this.
> 
> As always, comments + kudos are super appreciated! Thanks for reading <3


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